


until the sun rises

by PikaCheeka



Series: until the stars die [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Don't copy to another site, M/M, Memory Loss, Rape/Non-con Elements, Slow Burn, takes place in canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 00:44:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17714831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PikaCheeka/pseuds/PikaCheeka
Summary: As far as he is concerned, Ardyn Izunia only ever made one mistake in his life.Ten years later, he makes it again.-Kill him, kill him now.Ardyn has not had this conversation with anyone before, not even once. No one has ever recognized him. There has been suspicion abounds over the years, people realizing that he never appears to age, that he presents a depthless knowledge of history, that he is far too skilled a mage and too cunning a military tactician to be a man of no consequence as he claims, that he seems as boundless and unmoored as time itself.I want to talk about this, need to talk about this, he realizes suddenly, and something within him gapes and yawns, a void begging to be filled. “It seems…as if the true curse is not immortality but being forgotten.”"Ardyn,” he finally says then, so soft his voice is but a whisper. “How long have you been alone?"-Sequel tountil the stars die.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started this sequel, and one to “the eyes of the divine” (essentially the same story, but from Ignis’ perspective) back in September. I’ve had a rough time of things since then, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to finish this one; Ignis' birthday was the big push for me, but I still managed to finish it a day late! Sorry, Ignis! A sincere thank you to everyone who has read, kudosed, commented, and otherwise encouraged me to keep writing. I accidentally entered this fandom only weeks before what has probably been the darkest period of my life and all the kindness I’ve received when writing has helped me quite a bit. The Ignis side should be on the way! I’m doing my best to get it out before the Ardyn anime messes things up. Thank you, all, for being patient!
> 
> PS - I broke this one into 2 chapters because of the length!

 

He’s lost weight.

It’s the first thing Ardyn notices about him, Ignis Scientia trembling with indignation and more than a little fear, when he first warped into the Lestallum apartment that Ignis had rented despite only being there one in every three days. He’d dropped ten kilograms easily, maybe more, his belt a notch tighter and his shirt less form-fitting. Ardyn absently wonders at what weight he’s lost, if those parts of him that have vanished are parts he’s touched. _Absurd_. Ignis Scientia fills him with longing and causes him to lose his sense of reason.

He doesn’t wear his glasses or a visor when he’s alone – they are the first thing he removes in privacy, Ardyn has observed. His eyes are pale now, white but somehow no less alive for it. _Blind_. Ardyn had known he would be, had seen the ghostfire sear his face, but it still twists his gut to see him this way. An intoxicating mixture of pity and arousal; Ignis’ vulnerability and sorrow are so _attractive_.

Ardyn had been enraged at first, when he’d seen the team at the Fodina Caestino Mines. That’s when he had known for certain that this was forever. Because while he’d known he would be blind, he wasn’t certain at the time of its permanence. He knew well that the Kings of Yore showed no pity, that they never recanted their cruelty, but despite that he had _hoped_. Hoped Ignis would be forgiven.

_He wasn’t forgiven._

He wasn’t wearing his gloves when he walked in the door, a rare fortuitous event that pushes Ardyn to act without thinking. Those hands he remembers so well, thin and pale and delicate; he must have worn gloves through all of his Crownsguard training to keep them from growing callouses. _Not that it matters now_ , because his left hand is heavily scarred.

He acts, and he grabs his hands and drags Ignis towards him, Ignis who is spitting and snarling like a cornered Coeurl, not only angry but afraid. So very afraid. The Ignis of six months ago would have already flayed him alive, stabbed him a dozen times and kicked him in the face for good measure, but _this_ Ignis. He is broken, and Ardyn wants to take and take and _take_.

He’d watched Ignis for some time. He’d seen the way his companions worked around him, anxious and uncertain. It was clear that the Amiticia didn’t want him there for some time, that he was worried about him, afraid he’d be hurt. And the boy, Verstael’s boy, was treating him like a wounded dog while the prince had been a mess of regret, shame, and guilt. It was clear that he blamed himself, and he _should_. Ardyn will not accept blame for what Ignis had done. The blame lies in Somnus, in the ancient Kings, in the Crystal, the Astrals, everyone who has ever scorned and punished him. They have now punished Ignis for doing the same thing, for trying to protect those he loved. And seeing this, knowing that he and Ignis, against all odds, have suffered the same fate, _wounds_ him.

This Ignis may be broken, but he is still _his_. He is not someone else, not fragile or helpless, not someone to keep off the battlefield, to shield and pamper. Now, even now, months after the fall of darkness, Ardyn has seen Ignis’ friends continue to tiptoe around him. They might help him if he stumbles, but otherwise they do not touch him.  

He’s handling it valiantly, bravely, but Ardyn can see how much it wears on him. He’d been impressively courageous at the Keep when rescuing Prompto and leading Noctis to the crystal, composed and resilient even if his ability to fight was greatly diminished. He'd given him a dagger drawn from his own armiger, one of a pair he'd tried to give Ignis only a month before. Ignis had balked at such an expensive gift, but he'd used them whenever they mock-fought. He loved them, would run his pretty fingers over them again and again. He'd wondered if Ignis’ body would remember the weight and heft of it in his hand and find its familiarity strange and uncanny.

But he'd watched Ignis closely, seen that Ignis seemed to know where to go even as Gladiolus barreled off in the wrong direction, as if the hosts of time whispered on his shoulder and directed him forth. It had bothered Ardyn, filled him with an unease and a sense of dread that he hadn't felt in decades, not since he had sensed the birth of Noctis Lucis Caelum. _There's something there, something about him_. Because Ardyn himself had been blind. He'd been so wrapped up in seducing and using Ignis, in tearing down the prince's retainer and with him the world, that he'd repeatedly ignored the warnings.

Because in Ignis’ ruined eyes arose a second sight, nascent and terrible in its unknowable power. And this realization pushes Ardyn to _show_ him.

"I've noticed you aren't as touchy as most blind people I've had the pleasure of meeting. Life's going to be difficult if you don't get over that,” he whispers, dragging him still closer and pressing those palms to his own face. An unfathomable act; Ardyn does not know who he is any longer when he is with Ignis. He acts on a pure whim, masks his appearance with a likeness of Gladio and tightens his grip on Ignis’ wrists until he can feel his bones start to protest. He despises seeing Ignis down and defeated, but terrified he can appreciate, especially when he is the cause. “ _Who am I?_ ”

Ignis fights him another few seconds before unexpectedly relaxing, before suddenly spreading his fingers and roving them over Ardyn’s face. The gentleness makes Ardyn flinch, a subtle movement away from Ignis that he prays the boy missed. “Gladio.”

"Thought I'd start you with an easy one. Those scars are hard to mistake. Now try another."

He obeys, and so Ardyn passes through a half dozen faces that Ignis knows well. Ignis tries to ask how he does this, what sort of elemency is at the root of it, but Ardyn silences him with more questions, more _tests_ that he feels he must triumph over. Ignis can never resist a test.

And so it is with some frustration that he finally snaps, "Uhm... I can't place this one."

"Noctis. In ten years, assuming the Crystal doesn't chew him up and spit him out."

Ignis flinches now, the tension returning to his body, and Ardyn can see the uptick of his eyebrows, the slight tremble in his throat. "How..."

"You do realize I’m old enough to be his father, don't you? I've seen Regis grow up enough to...make an educated guess. One last one."

"You said this was the last.” He sounds petulant, almost embarrassed, but he still doesn’t pull away, leaving Ardyn to wonder at his apparent stupidity. _I could bite your fingers off right now_.

But he doesn’t bite him. "Oops. This is really the last one. Slowly now." Instead he drops the illusion, revealing only himself, and he closes his eyes and swallows down a sigh as Ignis begins touching him, stroking his face. Stroking it for far too long, long enough for Ardyn to almost be lulled into a sense of security he never thought he’d need. _Why did I erase your memory? Why didn’t I merely keep you?_

"Are you... Did Regis... have a brother?"

"Ah ah, you are a clever one." He likes clever. _I want to tell you. I always wanted to tell you, but I know your kind and I do not want your pity._ And he’s twisting his wrist, forcing one hand up to press his face against that palm, and he _inhales_. How he misses those hands, that voice, that body. He misses him in a way he’d never thought possible, and as he feels a stirring in his gut he realizes fully just how bad of an idea all of this had been. _I could take him now. His guard is down. I could make him mine again._

So he all but throws him back, shoves him aside and grins with a grin that does not reach his eyes as he bids him farewell.

“Don’t come back,” Ignis spits out as he steadies himself and immediately draws his hands behind his back.

Ardyn only shakes his head.

 

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Ignis’ touch on his face sustains him for a week, two weeks, before the urge to intrude upon his presence grows too great to resist. Since the darkness had come, since his revenge finally enveloped the planet, he’d found himself growing impatient, frustrated, bored. There’s little to do when one rules the world, when one spends most of his time a city utterly devoid of life. _I wanted this. I wanted this_. But he wants more still.

The ability to mask his presence has its advantages even when stalking a blind man. He can lounge around hunters’ hideouts, at chocobo outposts and restaurants, and watch Ignis interact with others. He doesn’t dare watch him when he is alone, lest Ignis sense the physical presence of another in the way only blind men can, but he watches him nonetheless, and he yearns.

Ardyn can see the despair emanating from him, the fear and frustration at not being able to properly protect his king. And he remembers when Ignis had put the ring on, when he’d defied him and torn destiny asunder. And Ardyn had understood that Ignis would do absolutely anything for his king. It had enraged him, filled him with a fury akin to that he felt towards his own brother, but it had also overwhelmed him with an ardor and a longing to stand beside such a being.

_Because, perhaps, Ignis Scientia is strong where he was not._

But now that Noctis is gone, now that Ignis has done his duty and must wait in darkness for his call, a call he must know is years, possibly decades, away, he is much reduced. There’s no one to put a show on for now, for a great part of Ignis’ strength lay in his king’s need for him to be strong.

Ardyn knows he will rally again, knows Ignis is far more powerful, magnanimous, _radiant_ than he realizes. He will wallow in sorrow for some time, but eventually whatever being curls around his spine and reverberates through his bones will push him to rise again. It’s part of why Ardyn is so attracted him. That something so _ancient_ inside of him, and Ardyn knows he will be drawn into his orbit again, again and again until they meet their ends.

And so he watches and he waits.

Every time he closes his eyes, he remembers that lithe body beneath his. Ardyn’s memory has grown lazy over the years; he’s fucked his way through Eos a dozen times over the last two thousand years and would now struggle to name even five of his paramours, but _Ignis_. Ignis who he spent only two months with, nothing compared to the years he’d lived with others who now don’t even emerge in dreams.

 _Ignis_ , he will remember forever.

Pity he does not remember him.

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The third time he appears before him, he is brutal. Because Ignis is despairing again, and Ardyn can not tolerate it. He backhands him across the face with enough force to send him stumbling, falling. It is not as satisfying as it might have been. Ardyn wonders if he is losing his appetite for cruelty now that he owns the world, or if it’s merely because his victim right now is Ignis Scientia.

The boy he has tortured more than anyone else throughout his long two thousand years.

“Ignis. It’s been six months.”

“I can’t do it,” he balks, more anguish than rage on his face as he touches his lips and comes away with blood on his fingers. “I’m too…”

 _You are not who I adore. You are not who I cornered and seduced and tormented. You are not who caught my eye a thousand ages past now. You are despairing, and that does not become you, because you are light and beauty and resilience and a thousand_ thousand _things I could never be._

He kicks him, not with all of his strength but enough to leave a bruise, enough to leave a lingering ache for days, only a fraction of the pain this man has made Ardyn feel. He kicks him and then he holds him down, grinding his heel down until Ignis is forced to crouch, hands and knees pressed against the broken glass, and Ardyn inhales the scent of blood and sorrow. It would be so easy to kill him.

This Ignis. He hates this Ignis. He wants to tear him down and slit his throat, but not before ravaging him one last time. “Stop being such an insufferable cunt, Ignis.” He all but spits the next words. _I loathe him, I loathe him, but he is all you will rally for. You refused me to stay by his side._ “Your king needs you.”

But the reminder of Noctis Lucis Caelum does not do as Ardyn expects.

“ _Which_ king?” Ignis howls, his voice at a pitch that makes Ardyn’s gut lurch as he abruptly remembers the way Ignis could truly shriek in bed. It’s a second or two before he can even process what was said, before he realizes the implication behind them.

 _I could have him, after all. He is so lost now, so wounded, so afraid, that I could twist him around my finger and make him mine._ But he knows better, and so he nudges him with his foot one last time, commanding him with the strength of a hundred generations. “Get up, go forth.”

He leaves in silence then, fingertips buzzing and an ache in his jaw that he has not felt in centuries. Ardyn has long ago stopped expecting anything of the world, but now? Now he feels something like hope, and it horrifies him.

He does not want to feel hope, because with hope comes disappointment and despair, and he has had more than enough of those.

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Ardyn tugs at the skin right by his asshole gently, so _gently_ , and waits. It isn’t long before Ignis whines, tries to move in such a way that Ardyn enters him, and pants, “Please.”

He obeys, entering him with first one, then two, fingers, and Ignis jumps and shivers and moans in his arms. Even if his mind is shattered, his body remembers this, because he remembers just how to clench and relax his muscles, remembers just what noises to make to drive Ardyn into a frenzy of need. He removes his fingers only long enough to lift Ignis by the hips, and the younger man knows exactly what he’s doing, because he darts his hands down and grabs Ardyn’s dick, rubs his thumb in his slit and smears the precome over him. He eases Ignis down then, resisting the urge to thrust up into him and make him scream right away. He finally has him again, after all this time. Better to make it last.

Ignis is gripping the arms of the throne so hard that his knuckles are white, head thrown back as he takes air in in deep gasps. They didn’t prepare him enough, and Ardyn can see how much this is hurting him in the way his abdominal muscles spasm, but he doesn’t protest. He’s used to rough sex by now, though his mind might have forgotten it. Ardyn wonders how he’s handled his newly awoken sexuality these last six months, how he’s grappled with filthy dreams he can’t remember having before Altissia. He wonders how often Ignis Scientia jerks off and thinks about asking, but then Ignis clenches around him and he forgets any concept of a coherent thought.

His body is so _sensitive_ now, even more than before, the loss of his sight pushing the rest of his senses into overdrive.

“Tell me what you meant,” he licks the sweat from his throat as he whispers. “When you said _which king_?”

“I,” he draws in a ragged gasp. “ _Kneel_.”

“I need more than that,” he purrs, digging nails so deeply into Ignis’ thighs he draws blood.

“The king,” he growls, “whose throne I am spread and fucked on.”

“Not enough.” Say it say it _say it._ _Call me your king._ Ardyn cannot remember ever needing something so badly in his life. The entire world can fall to its knees before him but it won’t be _enough_ if this man does not.

And then he awakes with a moan and a hard-on so sensitive that for one blissful, fleeting moment he thinks he really did just ravage Ignis Scientia. But no. He is alone in his bed, alone in the palace, alone in the entirety of Insomnia. He rolls onto his back and stares up through the skylight in the ceiling.

“Fuck,” he whispers, and he _needs_.

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Several months pass before Ardyn approaches him again, though time has grown increasingly difficult to abide by as darkness envelopes the world. In two days, it will have been exactly one year since the fall of Insomnia, since Ardyn first got his hands on the Crystal, seared his fingertips with the light of that which cast him out into darkness. One year since he tainted its goodness and stepped back to watch the world crumble, watch the entire human raise fall to their knees in despair. Everyone has bowed before him but _one_ , and it isn’t enough.

Ardyn can’t stay away. He watches Ignis from afar, warping to locations near him from time to time, putting on a new face so he can eat in the same restaurant, sit at the table right next to him and listen to his conversations. Or not, because Ignis is alone more often than Ardyn expects.

And after one such dinner, where Ignis downed three cups of Ebony and pushed seafood stew around on his plate after only a couple of bites, Ardyn warps to the apartment in Lestallum and waits. Ignis is only a block or two away, likely to spend the night here, not that it would deter Ardyn if he didn’t. He’s come here often enough when Ignis was away, gone through his things, touched all his clothing, slept in his bed. He’s used his shower and eaten his food, and he’s fairly certain that in another lifetime, Ignis would have noticed and gone into conniptions, but now he no longer pays any mind to how much juice is left in the carton when he returns home, how the fish fillets in the freezer keep disappearing.

Ignis freezes in the doorway for a moment, lifts his chin in Ardyn’s general direction and sighs. He slides his coat off and hangs it up, the repetition of the task rendering it easy after some months, and unbuckles the pouch he carries on his thigh as he kicks his shoes off.

“You told your friends you are doing well, hm?”

“Ardyn.” The way he says his name makes Ardyn shiver with need. “I am grateful to you for saying what you did some months ago, but nothing further. In fact I…”

“Yes?” he preens.

“I look forward to the day when Noctis awakens and kills you once and for all.”

He sighs dramatically and throws himself back on the couch, reveling in how Ignis flinches at the sound, the rush of air when he abruptly moves. It’s all he expects. _I erased every moment where you felt anything but hatred for me, after all._ But it irks him at the same time, knowing that Ignis isn’t _happy_. Content even. He supposes he can’t expect him to be happy without a king to kiss the feet of but Ardyn would settle for _content_. “And yet, you never attack me when I visit.”

“You’re not _visiting_. You’re intruding.”

“This couch is comfortable,” he grins as he watches Ignis positively shiver in frustration. “Come now, Ignis. I’m not doing anything wrong. In fact, I’ve only ever helped you this last year.”

“I don’t _need_ your help. I don’t understand why you won’t leave me be. Don’t you have a world to destroy?”

“Of course I do, but I have eternity to do it now, don’t I? The way you put that ring on, how you were so willing to sacrifice everything. That kind of loyalty is rare these days. It’s… _admirable_. I didn’t want to see that go to waste while you feel sorry for yourself.”

To his surprise, Ignis blushes then, bites his lower lip as his cheeks flush unevenly.

 _Unbelievable_. Ardyn stares now, slowly sits upright, and pushes once more to test the waters. “You _intrigue_ me.”

Ignis cocks his head just so, an action Ardyn recognizes well after so many nights with him. Interest, curiosity, _recollection_.

 _Shit_. Time to change the subject. “At any rate, I didn’t come merely to watch you fumble around in the kitchen. I have a proposition.”

Whatever Ignis might have been on the edge of remembering, it’s lost now as he quips, “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Lovely. I could care less. Do you want to see light one last time?”

“I can’t see,” he says petulantly, like a child. He opens his left eye and squints as he says it.

“Uhm,” Ardyn scowls. _Why do you have to be such a bitch all the time? You should know by now how alluring I find that._ But no, he doesn’t know, he can’t remember, because Ardyn made sure of it. So he sighs, “I am well aware. But you can feel the light, can you not? There will be a few minutes of light in a few days, a comet close enough to Eos, and then it shall be gone forever. It will only shine long enough to reach one place; most of Lucis will see it, but only a few will be able to feel its warmth. Precisely two, because if we show up, I’m sure any hapless fool who figured it out will leave.”

“The Disc of Cathuss,” Ignis says softly.

“Let me take you there,” he surprises himself with the pleading in his voice.

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It irks him, seeing Ignis like this. He'd been better. He'd been _better_.

He’d gone with him to see the comet after all, hostile and indignant the entire time. He’d gone and he’d felt the light on his skin in a way no human ought to, and he’d _laughed_. He’d laughed, and he’d _thanked_ Ardyn until the older man had skittered away from him, unsure of how to handle the slightest bit of compassion from the person he is rapidly finding to be the center of his world.

Ignis Scientia, who would destroy the world in a heartbeat were it in his king’s interest. Ignis Scientia, relentless in his viciousness and his capacity for love. Ignis, Ignis, _Ignis_. He should not be so despondent.

"It's difficult to find enough to read. It's so easy to get bored now," he sighs, drumming his fingers on the open book before him. Braille. Such a precious few handfuls of books have ever been printed in braille, and Ignis has likely poured through the bulk of them. "I don't like the apps that read to me. I don't want to wear headphones all the time and be dead to yet another sense."

Ardyn can well understand. He'd been imprisoned, after all, in the dark, in the silence. He despises how much Ignis' blindness eats away at him. It makes him loathe Somnus and the Astrals even more, that they would punish this man in such a cruel way. "Do you remember when I gave you that map with the raised ink?"

The map of the Disk of Cathuss, showing him exactly where they would be able to see the comet. Because Ignis had gone with him, had stood beside him and howled with delight as the light touched his scars. He’d been happy in that moment, and beautiful in his joy, but in the end it had only reminded him of what he had lost forever.

He looks suspicious as he narrows his eyes. His expressions are still identical to those he had before he lost his sight. "Yes. I remember the map."

"I can teach you how to do that, if you like. It's a matter of simple elemency. You don't even need any materials."

"You know." He closes the book then, folds his hands over it and if he could, he would be glowering at Ardyn. "The source of your magic troubles me. I saw what you did to Ravus back then." _Back then._ When he was sighted. When he _saw_. "I wrote it off at the time as you being able to borrow from the Hydraen, given her proximity. I've read that any Eonian can use magic if they are close enough to an Astral. But you've...done some unusual things since that I can't justify so easily. And now apparently you have enough magic to perform parlor tricks?"

"I wouldn't call something that could be of great help to you a parlor trick," Ardyn shrugs, evasive and uncertain. He knows he should leave now, now, _now_ , but he can't. "Do you want me to teach you or not?"

"Yes." Ignis says it so firmly, with no hesitation at all, that Ardyn can't help but grin. He'd been so despondent only a moment ago, but he's back to himself again so easily. This is the Ignis he remembers, the Ignis he adores, the Ignis he held and whispered to and nurtured. And so Ardyn acquiesces against his better judgment.

-

He tightens his grip then, squeezes his fingers over Ignis'. He's so warm.

Ignis freezes for the barest of moments, and there's an almost-imperceptible shift of his head. Ardyn wonders for a moment if he pushed too far, if he let his longing slip, oozing out of his pores as it does. His feeling for this man is as powerful as the Scourge inside of him, devouring him, altering him, and he curses to himself.

He curses, but he doesn't move. Because Ignis is warm and delicate against him, all but in his arms, and Ardyn yearns so terribly he knows that death would take him if he were mortal. He wonders if he could begin again, if he could take him, seduce him and praise him and adore him, if he could ever convince Ignis to do anything but despise him. He wonders and he almost regrets.

Until Ignis elbows him, and he's cursing again, stepping back so quickly he drags Ignis back with him a few inches. It’s just as he used to do, just as he behaved when Ardyn taught him in the past, all sharp angles and spitfire.

But Ignis takes it in stride and only petulantly snaps, "At least you can be useful occasionally."

 _This isn't the first thing I taught you. I taught you Sagefire. I taught you healcast. I taught you a thousand spells and I bought you new daggers and polearms and trained you. I held you and kissed you and fucked you a hundred times. And you remember_ nothing _, You remember nothing because I made you remember nothing. And I..._ He is almost grateful that Ignis is blind, that he can't see his face.

"Did it work?" Ignis steps towards the table again and touches the book, his pale thin fingers ghosting over the page just as they used to dance over Ardyn's skin in cheap motels, in the backseat of Ardyn's car and in the hotel in Altissia. And there is a sense of wonder on his face; he looks happy, beautiful, but something more. He is troubled. He doesn't ask, but Ardyn can see it on his face, in his hesitation, in the way he flexes his fingers and turns his face towards his hands as if he can still see.

"I've never seen or felt this kind of magic before," he finally murmurs.

 _Because it's from the Scourge. Because I just taught you how to manipulate the words, the power, of others, and that is an act not ordained by the Astrals. Because you now possess dark magic._ He chooses to ignore that statement. "You can use this forever now."

"Oh?"

"I infused the elemency you borrow from Noctis with my own. It's yours now, to do what you will with." It dawns on him as he says it that he should have asked Ignis' permission before doing such a thing, merely to at least mimic some sense of civility, but he didn't and it's too late now. He isn't sure he could retract it if he wanted to, but the truth is that he doesn’t want to.

"Was that necessary? You could have just...taught me. Without doing that," he says tightly, but he isn't as angry as he could be, and Ardyn supposes that counts for something.

"You couldn't do this with Noctis' power," he says simply.

"So what..." He bites off the rest of his thought and sighs. "It will work on any words? Any material?"

"Yes. I'd advise against using it on phone and computer screens for obvious reasons, but it does work on everything."

"Huh," he breathes. "Interesting how I've never heard of such a thing before."

Ardyn realizes then that it's time to make his exit, before Ignis starts asking questions, before he starts pushing. "You're welcome in the Insomnia palace libraries."

The words have the desired effect, and Ignis' eyes narrow as he turns suddenly, makes a sharp step towards him and snarls at him to get out.

"A little gratitude next time, perhaps? I'll take my leave then." But Ignis only acted as he expected. He only does what he knows how to do, which is lash out and grieve and grow more beautiful with every tragedy that passes through his veins. _We were all fated to be who we are._ And as he turns to leave, he wonders again, again, if Ignis had been written in the stars, if their meeting, their passing was written into the fabric of the universe just as deeply and irreversibly as the Prophecy.

And if there is anything more written there.

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Ardyn had left him a book some years ago, a taunt. He’d thought nothing of it at the time, believing that not enough information remained in the world for Ignis to put it together, for Ignis to learn the truth about him. And while that might have been true, there is more than one world.

"I've been having visions," he says then, abruptly.

The words tear through him like a knife and he bares his teeth in a snarl. _Visions. Could the Astrals truly be so cruel, to not only take his eyesight because he broke a childish rule to save his prince's life, but to burden him with the power of prophecy, to make him a seer? I should have known, I should have known._ "Visions."

"I..." he takes a deep breath and lets it out through his nose. "I think I had the first one right before...this." He gestured towards his face.

"You _think_?" He can't hide the anger in his voice.

Ignis hesitates, and Ardyn can almost hear him thinking. _He doesn't want me to know that his memory is damaged. He knows something happened to him._ "I don't remember much of what happened when I was two years old, sorry to disappoint. I don't know why I told you." There is something in his voice that is not only hurt, but alarmed, disappointed, confused.

And Ardyn isn’t sure if it’s a good or a bad thing that Ignis is wondering why he is so calm around the man who destroyed the known world. He almost mocks him, almost asks why he told him, why he tells him anything, but he doesn’t, because he remembers a wide-eyed man in the passenger seat of his car who looked at him as if he were the _sun._ “What are you going to do about it?”

“Defeat you once and for all.” He says it as if he hasn’t traversed Eos with Ardyn Izunia off and on these last few years.

“You don’t say.” He’s never this speechless.

He rubs his eyes now and sighs. “I’ll accept what the Astrals have given me and I will drive you towards your end.”

He suddenly has the urge to devour him, to lunge at him, throw him down and rip his clothing off, gut him with his cock and fuck him until he begged for mercy. He wants to rut in that divinity that is inside of this man before him.

 _How often have I rubbed those lips with my thumb, my tongue, my dick. How well I know his body, how intimately I know his mind. And yet this knowledge passed me by. I believed him to be divine because he was beautiful and naive, gorgeous and adoring, and I missed the truth of him._ He wonders if Ignis was born to destroy him, if he'd been wrong, if everyone had been wrong, and his demise will come not at the hands of Noctis Lucis Caelum but at the hands of his loyal servant.

Ardyn bares his teeth and lets his barriers fall away. He lets the demons inside of him unfurl, roaring and howling through his veins where blood once ran, and the Scourge drips from his eyes, from his mouth, from beneath his fingernails.

And _Ignis_. Ignis sees nothing. He senses nothing. But Ardyn knows now that his time is running out.

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He discovers what Ignis is doing by accident. What Ignis _is_ by accident.

He’d followed him one day, out of boredom and curiosity, followed him as he’d climbed into a truck he would have been ashamed to ride in three years ago, driven by a boy who Ardyn suspects is too young to be driving. But then again, what sort of government still exists to grant driver’s licenses? It’s not as if there are pedestrians to mow down by accident any longer. Ardyn shouldn’t be anxious about this, but he is. If a traffic accident kills him…. It would be such a shame. An undignified embarrassment, and therefore exactly the sort of thing the Astrals would delight in doing to him.

And so the next time he’d seen the truck, he stuck a tracking device on it. Easy. Discrete. Nobody would even think to look for one. He could see exactly where Ignis went, and warp to his final destination if he ever wanted to watch.

For weeks he’d pretended not to care, not to keep track of it. But eventually one day, he looks and the GPS coordinates are eerily familiar. _I know those coordinates_. And he goes. He goes against all reason, against everything in his mind warning him to stay away.

He sees him at the tomb, feels the simmering of the power of the Astrals.

He should have expected it. Because Ignis is curious and cunning and brilliant; his desire to learn is insatiable and he adores all that is ancient and mystical. Ardyn remembers a hundred conversations about such matters, so distracted by Ignis’ long, naked legs draped over the arm of a chair or by the bumps of his spine as he lounged in a hotel bed that he probably said far more than he should have. But the younger man had devoured his knowledge with a passive acceptance; after all, it could never even have crossed his mind that Ardyn knew so much because he was immortal, because he was the plague made manifest and he had lived the stories Ignis wonders at. No; he’d merely assumed Ardyn was learned, erudite.

But not for long. Not if he keeps doing this. And Ardyn pales as he realizes this. He feels what is the closest thing to fear he has felt in two thousand years.

Ignis doesn’t remember, but he knows something is off. And he has visions. He is a seer.

_If he discovers who I am, he might pity me._

_And he might remember_. Because if he is gifted with such a power, then Ardyn’s own darkness, his ability to manipulate minds, his ability to crush memories and warp reality, is significantly weakened against him. The shock of discovering the truth of Ardyn, as there would surely be such a shock, might well be enough to evaporate all of Ardyn’s efforts to keep Ignis unaware.

_He might remember._

And Ardyn knows what he must do.

-

He hasn’t visited in years, the last time being the day that Noctis entered the Crystal. He’d taken that moment to gloat, to sit in the dark, the now-eternal dark, and laugh. _You knew this would happen. You did everything in your power to prevent it, even if it meant torturing your brother for thousands of years, and look at what a difference it made in the end._

That was four years ago, the blink of an eye to an immortal.

He traces fingers over the sarcophagus, feeling the edges of the face he knows so well, now stone and lichen and empty promises. He does so in darkness, and he thinks of Ignis, groping fingers stroking his face in a world that no has lost all light. _Why would you do that to him?_

“Did you know who he was? Did you know he was given to the prince at the age of six, that he was forced to be at once a brother and a mother when he was scarcely old enough to understand right from wrong? He is like us, you know, a tool of the Astrals doomed to accept his allotment in life, and all you did was punish him for it. The way you punished _me_.” The last words come out in a hiss as his eyes narrow and he curls his fingers, nails now tearing through centuries-old moss.

“Could you see him through Noctis’ eyes? Could you see the way he laughed, the way his eyes shone and the corners of his lips turned upwards? He will never laugh again.” His own words take him aback. _Why do you care if he laughs? Why can you remember his facial expressions so well? Why does his smile haunt you when you close your eyes?_ How he hates what Ignis Scientia does to him, and still, he hates what has been done to the boy still more. It’s been thousands of years since he has ever felt so weak. “You robbed him of all he ever knew, robbed him of his sight and his king and turned your back on him as you turned on me.”

And now he releases the Scourge.

“Do you still hate me so, that you would punish him for being with me?”

He hadn’t allowed himself to think it, not for years. He never let those thoughts enter his mind. _He was blinded because of you. Because he slept with you when you were a stranger and again when you were the Niflheim Chancellor. Because he ignored a thousand hints and suspicions that you were more than you said you were. Because he was blind to the truth of you, he was blinded for eternity._

And he lets the rage devour him, the hatred he has harbored for thousands of years searing his fingertips as he lets the disease turn his blood to vitriol. He wonders if Somnus could truly hate him so.

The Prophecy suggests that it is the Usurper who harbors a grudge for centuries, but Ardyn knows that while this is true, he is not alone. “ _You_ are the one who cannot forgive.”

He could cause the tomb to explode, cause it to burn with a fire so hot that it would melt stone and bone, but instead he devours it. The Ring of the Lucii is not the only source of magic that envelopes, that can create a black hole in the fabric of the universe and vanish things. He devours the tomb, leaving nothing but an empty cave, a yawning sense of absence that Ignis will most certainly feel, but be helpless to explain. The boy will never learn what Somnus knows. In some matters, even for a blinded mortal who yearns for sunlight, for human faces, for truth, darkness is preferred.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, though it is less of an apology to Somnus as it is to Ignis. Because Ardyn Izunia has done no good for anyone in hundreds of years, no good except that which he’d done for Ignis.

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He should stay away. He must stay away. Because as Ignis willfully tears his way through Lucis, plunders ancient graves and absconds with information he has no right to have, Ardyn’s fear that he will learn the truth only grows. _But I destroyed the one tomb that might harbor the veracity of me. There’s nothing more for him to find._

And so he doesn’t stay away. He finds him, again and again over the next year, and Ignis’ fury and confusion continue to grow. Until one day that fury finally manifests, tearing through the veil between them when Ardyn nonchalantly asks if he needs someone to talk to. Because only yesterday he’d seen Ignis drive Verstael’s boy off, seen him snap viciously at him when Prompto had asked if he’d needed anything.

“It’s clear that you hate me, so would it not be a suitable punishment then? To burden me with your needs?”

Ignis lunges for him, beautiful in his fury. “You can not even begin to understand the depths of my hatred for you. I destroyed my sight and all but lost my purpose in life to kill you, and still you live. You didn’t even grant me the dignity of properly fighting me.”

So he’d noticed, noticed that Ardyn had only danced around him, refused to touch him with his darkness, with the madness of the Scourge. He’d noticed and he’d remembered. Ardyn nearly marvels at his own ability to erase memory, marvels at how cleanly he had taken the scalpel to this man’s brain and carved out all but the hatred Ignis harbors for him. “You don’t want me to fight you. I’d kill you, but not before I brutalized and tortured you.”

He lets the implication hang between them, the hint. _I’d rape you. I’d push you down and rip your clothes out of the way and fuck you as you screamed and sobbed._

But if Ignis catches it, he doesn’t care, because there are daggers materializing in the younger man’s hands and he’s suddenly holding one to Ardyn’s throat, impressive in how menacingly close he can be while blind.

“Do it, then,” he whispers, taunting him against his better judgment, because his immortality remains unspoken.

But he doesn’t. Because his knees are trembling and there are tears in his eyes as he gasps for air, and Ardyn can see the confusion, the hesitation in his eyes moments before he drops. The Accursed catches his wrists as he goes down, gently lowers him the last inch or two until his knees graze the floor. 

“ _Why can’t I?_ ” He screams and he screams and Ardyn watches him in silence.

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“Why do you keep that eye closed most of the time?”

Ignis makes a low growl of exasperation. The younger man had softened after the incident with the daggers, once he realized that he was unable to kill Ardyn not because he was not strong enough, but because an unknown force stayed his hand. “The muscles are damaged. It’s tiring to keep it open all of the time. I must exercise it though. I don’t want anything to atrophy further.”

It’s been years, and he can still track sound with his vacant eyes. He isn’t like other blind men Ardyn has met, who scarcely use their eyes. He behaves as if he can see, and he has taken to forgoing the visor in public recently. Ardyn wonders if anyone ever told him that his eyes have ceased to be white, and that as he grows older they have turned a faintly glowing green. _The remnants of the Kings of Yore._

Ignis’ blindness is tragic, but oh so convenient. He doesn’t know that across the room, Ardyn is massaging a hard-on through the front of his pants while staring at him. He’s done this more times than he can even count by now, and if Ignis even suspects it, which he probably doesn’t, he doesn’t say a thing about it. It’s oddly exhilarating, knowing he fucked this man a thousand different ways and Ignis remembers nothing. Probably thinks he’s still a virgin. Ardyn alone knows what Ignis Scientia is like in bed. He and he _alone_.

Which is why he nearly laughs when Ignis abruptly says, "You can sleep in the bed, if you like."

Because he’d fallen asleep on the couch more than once by now, more than even three times. Sleep is unnecessary, just as food is, but he must keep up appearances and after all, he does enjoy his sleep.

"How can you get your beauty sleep if you're on the couch?" He says it casually enough, but his gut has dropped in a way that only Ignis can make him feel mortal. Sleep in the bed. Lay beneath those sheets and rest his head on that pillow and drift off to sleep while inhaling his scent. He doesn't open his eyes, but he can imagine Ignis' expression now. Uncertain, anxious, lonely. He squeezes his cock through his pants and grins. Ignis is so _cute_ when he’s like this. He knows what the younger man will say even before he says it.

"We can share the bed," he says softly.

Ardyn doesn't touch him. He doesn't touch him but gods, is it trying.

Their meetings had usually been furtive, brief, so as to ensure he was able to make it back to his friends before anyone grew concerned. But twice Ignis had spent the night with him, and a few other times he’d dozed off in his presence, content and sated, waking on occasion to stretch and smile at him with half-closed eyes. His sleep is nearly the same now, but so different at the same time. Because now his sleep is fitful, his face pained, exhausted from the efforts of maintaining a front for the rest of the world. He’s laid bare. He whimpers in his sleep once, fingers grasping as he shudders, but Ardyn only watches. It would be easy, so _easy_ , to reach over, grasp that hand until Ignis calms, to lie over him and whisper comfort in his ear until his body arches up to meet his. Ardyn has bided his time for two thousand years before setting forth his plans for revenge, but in matters of sex he has little patience. If this had been _before_ , before Altissia, before the forgetting, he’d have fucked Ignis in a second, even if he awoke and protested, perhaps _especially_ if he protested. But he doesn’t. He only watches as Ignis’ eyebrows twitch once and he quiets down.

He’s beautiful, achingly beautiful, and Ardyn is filled with a desire so deep that it aches in his very bones. _I miss you. I’m right beside you and yet I miss you._

He leaves before Ignis awakes.

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And he doesn’t return.

Ignis had, unexpectedly, texted him a few times. The first after six weeks, the second after ten, the third after six months, and every time Ardyn read them again and again, his eyes misting over those words as he imagined Ignis painstakingly reciting them alone in his apartment, asking his phone to read them back to him until they are perfect. Or perhaps not. Perhaps he merely spits them out in moments of rage, snarling into the phone and sending the transcribed words off into nothingness without thinking about them.

He never responds. Because he remembers lying beside Ignis in that bed, remembers longing for him, missing him, adoring him. Ignis Scientia does things to him that he never thought possible, and he fears him in a way he fears no one else.

But he also knows that his power over the mortal is weakening.

-

“A year. A _year_ , Ardyn.”

Ardyn can only stare, uncomprehending for a moment. Because Ignis Scientia stands before him in the throne room. He’s clearly exhausted, his clothing dusty and his boots now capped in metal, likely to prevent him from breaking his toes and to keep him more steady on his feet. _He didn’t even bring a cane with him. He must have left it out front. No way could he have wandered through the seven kilometers of debris from the city gates without it_. It occurs to him then that Ignis left it behind because he wanted to appear strong to Ardyn, and this twists his gut. He’d always been such a foolish thing, headstrong and relentless and all the more beautiful for it.

“Has it really been a year? I’m sorry. I’m getting forgetful in my old age.” A brazen lie. He had felt every second of his imprisonment as if it were a lifetime, every second of his life with Ignis as if it were an antidote. He has never felt more lonely then he has this last year.

“Don’t act so blasé about everything,” he hisses, his voice low and raw with what Ardyn knows to be pain. “I’m only twenty-seven. A year is a good percentage of my life.”

“I’m sorry I was unable to witness you blossoming into a mature young man.” His voice drips with sarcasm, but only to hide the sadness. Ignis looks older. It’s harder to notice such things when one stalks another as incessantly as he had, but over the course of a year… At twenty-seven there are already hints of wrinkles around his unscarred eye, a shadow beneath it that he will never bounce back from now that he is past his youth. Oh how young he is, and yet he is already a third of the way towards a natural death. As if he would have a natural death.

“ _Don’t_. Why did you stop coming?”

Ardyn sighs then, because perhaps the boy is more stupid than he’d believed. “Maybe I simply got tired of you telling me to go away.”

“Because you’d always show up at such inopportune moments and because you just kept acting as if you owned my home!” he’s trembling in rage, and Ardyn leans forward on the throne to get closer to this simmering wrath. Gods, he is beautiful when he’s angry. _I should provoke him more often_.

“Says the man who just walked into my home to disparage me.”

“Says the filthy _Usurper_.” And Ardyn grins at this, because it means that Ignis still doesn’t know, still doesn’t know. And he keeps grinning as Ignis continues, “I don’t like it. Not knowing what you’re up to.”

“So you expect me to regularly check in with the enemy? I know Regis was a little inept at politics but I can’t imagine he’d have taught you that such behavior is to be expected.”

“I expect you to regularly check in with _me_ ,” and even as he says it, it’s as if he knows he has gone too far, because he steps back a pace and bites his lip. “I…”

_Don’t. Don’t say it._

“Get out. If you’re not out of the palace within the next ten seconds I will warp you out of here and throw you from the top of the gates of Insomnia.”

_Because if you persist, if you stay, I will take you and warp you further into my lair, and I will never let you leave. I will crawl between those pale, scarred thighs and take up residence in your guts. You will not breathe but for when I let you. Because I have let you go once, a second time, and I will not do it again._

He looks like he’s going to argue, his mouth opening and closing once as he sighs loudly, and all Ardyn can think about is the scar on his lips. He’s fairly certain he’d left that one, that and the one on his nose, on his eyebrow. Nothing compared to what his brother had done. He bares his teeth in rage, and it’s as if Ignis can _see_ him.

Because Ignis obeys. He obeys even as Ardyn silently begs him not to.

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When he finally emerges again, he winds his way to that lonely apartment in Lestallum after disguising himself as the hunter Dave and casually asking Ignis what he planned on doing the next few days. So easy. It never fails to astound him how easily he can fool _Ignis_ ; he has little respect for the intelligence of the rest of the human race, and so their idiocy does not surprise him. But when Ignis doesn’t catch it, when Ignis alone should realize that Ardyn can disguise himself, that Ardyn is in every corner, every shadow, ever whisper in an empty corridor.

He emerges, and he immediately regrets. Because Ignis is _waiting_ for him. So Ignis had recognized him and only feigned cluelessness.

“You’re more than the Niflheim Chancellor.”

Ardyn freezes. Ignis is standing in the doorway to the living room that Ardyn had so easily warped into, radiant with fury as he holds a book open in front of him. Since he had taught the younger man the spell to raise ink so that he can read with his fingers, he’d rapidly begun to devour every written word in Lucis.

Ardyn recognizes this book immediately and feels dread taking shape beneath his ribcage, in that hollow space that is filled with memories of _Ignis_. Still, he makes light of it.

“Niflheim? Rather passé, don’t you think? I believe I am ruler of the world, right now.”

Ignis steps forward and Ardyn hears the soft tap of his boot hitting the leg of the table as he feels his way in moments before slamming the book down before him. “I’d been curious about a lot of things. About you. And then you were as I knew you’d be. On the throne.

“Izunia. That’s you, isn’t it? I’d read this some time ago but I… my memory is not the best anymore,” he sounds frail when he says this, as if it pains him. Ignis the Strategist, he who never forgets, who hoards information.

“Perhaps an ancestor. What of it?” He’s grateful that Ignis can’t see the color plate on the page immediately before, can’t see Izunia of old. And he’s angry with himself. _I should have expected this. He was suspicious before, and I left him that damn book. He’s too clever and curious to let things go. I should kill him now and be done with it. Be done with this great mistake that is Ignis Scientia._

“He was a master healer, the first sage, who saved the human race from a plague by taking it into his body.”

He continues to seethe, but doesn’t let it show in his voice. “Mm, hopefully he had children before that. Sounds like it’d be sexually transmitted.”

Ignis blushes faintly but ignores the comment. “He was meant to be the first king but was betrayed by the Astrals who deemed him tainted. His brother. Somnus,” he grits his teeth. “Executed him, but he lived, accursed, and he’s been walking Eos ever since. Damned to an immortality he doesn’t want.”

“That’s rather unfortunate,” he responds lazily, but he’s mesmerized by the anger in Ignis’ voice. _He’s angry for me_. _Or at me_. He hopes it’s the former, but knowing Ignis Scientia, it’s probably the latter. He should be; Ardyn is enraged with himself.

“In everything I have ever read, this name has only emerged once. He’s been erased from history. Why then, pray tell, would his descendants continue to carry his name?”

 _Kill him, kill him now._ Ardyn has not had this conversation with anyone before, not even once. No one has ever recognized him. There has been suspicion abounds over the years, people realizing that he never appears to age, that he presents a depthless knowledge of history, that he is far too skilled a mage and too cunning a military tactician to be a man of no consequence as he claims, that he seems as boundless and unmoored as time itself. _I want to talk about this, need to talk about this_ , he realizes suddenly, and something within him gapes and yawns, a void begging to be filled. “It seems…as if the true curse is not immortality but being forgotten.”

And then Ignis does the unexpected. He snorts in derision and _smiles_ then, rocking back on his heels and shoving his hands in his pockets. "Odd to think that the Accursed Starscourge of Old raids my kitchen when I'm not at home."

"Living up to expectations grows tedious after a few centuries." He isn’t in the mood to make light of the situation, make light of anything, but he doesn’t know how to speak of what was never meant to surface.

"Ardyn,” he finally says then, so soft his voice is but a whisper. “How long have you been alone?"

 _Six years. Since Altissia. Since you betrayed me. I am condemned to an eternity of oblivion against my will, but you. You, I made forget me._ "An eternity."


	2. Chapter 2

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“I want to learn more about you.”

 _That voice_. Ignis had, doggedly enough, returned to the capital, felt his way back into the palace and found Ardyn in the libraries. Ardyn doesn’t even turn to look at him. He wonders if Ignis had noticed yet that demons have lost interest in him, if he finds that strange at all. “Why? So you can kill me later? Only your darling prince can do that.”

“Shut up. I want to know why you attacked Insomnia. Why you aided Niflheim for decades and spurred on years of unrest and eventually destroyed the city when all you wanted was for Noctis to enter the Crystal. The Crystal which you stole. And why you killed Lunafreya, why you plunged the world into darkness.”

Ardyn rolls his head around once before sighing. “Have you never heard of revenge?”

The younger man ignores this comment as he steps forward, brushes fingers against his coat. “Mm, Ardyn?” he breathes. “Show me your scars. You once told me you had them.”

“I lied.”

“I felt them a few times, when we fought, when you grabbed my wrists. I didn’t think anything of it, then, assumed they were pertaining to your military experience or something of the like. But they’re from…. _before_ , aren’t they?”

The way he says it is unexpectedly tender, and Ardyn’s unease only increases. They haven’t talked about it, not beyond that single conversation where Ignis learned the truth. _Before_. “Yes.”

“Take your shirt off. I want to feel them.”

Ardyn surprises even himself as he obeys.

Ignis’ fingers are delicate at first, then firm, and then forceful, as he traces each scar, runs his palms over his back, his shoulders, rubs him from his neck down to the waistband of his pants, and Ardyn struggles to keep his breathing steady. _A thousand times you touched those scars, kissed them, lay your naked body upon them. A hundred times you asked me where they were from, and I could never come up with an adequate lie. A dozen times you asked me if they still hurt in the way old wounds ache with the cold, and I had no words to voice the affirmative._ He sighs softly, and the noises breaks Ignis from his spell.

“You were whipped. This was with a scourge, hm?”

“You’re quite the expert in ancient practices of torture,” he drawls, because it’s always better to think of inflicting torture on others, but he also finds that this delights him. Ignis, oh sweet Ignis. “Thirty-nine, if you must know.”

“Thirty-nine with a scourge would kill most grown men.”

“So would 2000 years on this wretched plain.”

Ignis falls silent. His hand is still flat on the back of his shoulder, and it’s an agonizing several seconds before he slides it up and over Ardyn’s arm, circles his bicep and all the way down to his wrist.

Ardyn doesn’t know why he lets him, doesn’t want to know why he lets him, but he doesn’t pull away or snap at him when Ignis circles him, begins laying those long fingers over his other arm, his throat, his chest. At every scar he makes a low sound as if thinking, until he reaches the worst of them.

“Spear?” He lingers over the jagged scar below his pectoral.

“You’d know better than most.”

Ignis smirks, both his eyes closed now as he lifts his face up to him. “It entered you at an odd angle, didn’t it? From below, almost.”

“More or less,” he grunts and he finds himself looking away, even though Ignis can’t see his discomfort. He can’t see it, but he can accentuate it, because then his hands are roving lower, prodding at his abs and lower, lower still, as he fingers his naval trail down to where it stops at the waistband. _There’s no way he didn’t just feel my breath hitch._

“Do you have any more? Take everything else off. I want to know how you were executed.”

“You’re very demanding, aren’t you? And inappropriate.”

“What difference does it make? You’ve seen me naked.”

 _Oh, more than you can ever know._ Because Ignis had grown into his sexuality quickly, with only the slightest guidance from Ardyn, as if he’d been waiting, tightly wound and hungry with desire, until someone came along to show him what to do with it. And, at Ardyn’s request, he’d often entirely strip when they fucked, and Ardyn has spent long nights sucking and biting his way over that body. But he remembers none of that now. “Accidentally.”

Because that one time, it had been an accident. One night years ago when Ardyn had warped into his apartment just as he was stepping out of the shower. He’d seen his scars then, the scars from the ring covering nearly half of his body. And Ardyn had yearned to touch him, to kiss him. “And I had the dignity not to grope you in curiosity.”

Ignis ignores him, crouches down then, dropping his hands to first his ankles before slowly working his way up. _Kneel, kneel, you bitch._ He remembers the night, years ago now, when he’d knocked Ignis down and the younger man had knelt, cowered, before him and asked, _Which king?_ The image stirs the arousal he’d been fighting against these last four minutes. He wants to kick him until he falls to his knees, then step on his shoulder and shove his face to the floor, hold him there until he begs for mercy. And then he’ll ravage him from behind, make him scream until blood runs down the backs of his thighs. _I’ll show you torture. I’ll show you scars_.

Ignis, Ignis Scientia, so serene, so oblivious as he feels his way up his calves, his thighs. He asks about a couple of them; he visibly flinches when his fingers brush the scar behind Ardyn’s left knee but is otherwise brutally clinical. The sight is discomfortingly familiar. _A healer, ensuring someone is whole again._ Until suddenly it’s not, because as Ignis rises he grabs Ardyn’s cock and squeezes, lifts his hand up and wraps fingers around his balls as he palms him.

And Ardyn groans, inhales deeply and holds his breath to keep from making another sound, because Ignis is smiling up at him now, triumphant smirk twisting up one corner of his mouth, eyes closed and eyebrows raised. It’s been a long time since Ardyn has felt that hand on him, _years_ , and he remembers when he’d first pushed into Ignis Scientia, watched his throat as his head fell back, eyes fluttering closed and mouth dropping open as a small moan escaped him. He’d been so _quiet_ , then, before Ardyn had told him to let go. He’s still quiet now, but so different. Confident, forward, savage. _He’s becoming me_. There’s no way that Ignis can’t realize how aroused he is, how hard he’s rapidly growing, but he doesn’t react, doesn’t even blush as he continues to hold him.

“No scars,” he finally whispers the words so softly Ardyn almost doesn’t hear them, so distracted is he by memories, by _longing_ , and he gives him another squeeze before releasing him with a flourish.

Ardyn waits only a moment before catching his wrist and pulling him back. “I know you’re a bit unskilled in the ways of life but you can’t just grab grown men there, you must know that.”

“You’re not a man,” he suddenly turns on him, eyes snapping open in unexpected anger. “You’re the _Accursed_.”

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Ignis grows into his sorrow like a second skin, and as the years pass he grows more beautiful. He might not know what he looks like, but he must sense something. It is in the way he moves, the way he moves his hips, the languid way he uses his hands and the sultry tilt to his head when he speaks. _I did this to him. I showed him how beautiful he is, how seductive he can be, but his mind forgets what his body remembers._ And that unknowing only makes him more vivacious.

Which is why it doesn’t surprise Ardyn one day when Ignis whispers, “I tried… Gladio and I…”

It doesn’t surprise him, but the jealousy does. “You _tried_? To sleep with him?”

“I couldn’t go through with it.”

The satisfaction he feels at this almost embarrasses him. “What happened?”

“Because it…didn’t feel right. I can’t have sex. He was…careful. It didn’t hurt, and I wanted it. But I told him to get off. I tried to talk to him afterwards and I couldn’t even do that,” he speaks softly but he can’t disguise the tremor in his voice. “It.” He draws a shaky breath, a breath that Ardyn lives and dreams in, and tries to speak again. “I told him, there’s something wrong with my memory. Like I’m missing pieces. Something happened, and I…”

He’s suddenly slapping the sheets furiously. “I. Can’t. Remember. And it hurts. It _hurts_.”

The tears catch Ardyn off guard, and for a moment he is frozen. He wants to touch him, comfort him, put his arms around him, but he can’t. He fully understands then, the consequences of loss, the burden of oblivion that he has inflicted on Ignis. In wiping his memory, he’d deprived him of the ability to grieve or move on. He’d bound Ignis to him for eternity in the cruelest of ways.

And then Ignis kills him.

He wipes his nose, leans forward and raises his face to the ceiling and draws in another ragged breath before sighing it out, “I’m attracted to you.”

No. No, you are not. “What do you mean by that?”

“Do you remember when I felt your scars, and I grabbed you?”

“It’s difficult to forget.”

“I wanted you then. And you…didn’t want me back. It made me angry. That’s why I said what I did, and why I went to Gladio. I have urges I didn’t have before I lost my sight. And I’m lonely. And you’re here. I despise you, abhor you, but you’re here.”

He ignores the hatred, because there is no bite behind his words. _It must be confusing to you, to not feel the hatred you know you should feel towards the man who destroyed your world._ “What makes you think I didn’t want you?”

“Because you didn’t fuck me.” He says it so crudely, so bluntly, that Ardyn flinches. He’s heard Ignis talk in such a way before, many times in the past, but here, _here_. It’s too much.

“Ignis.”

“ _What_?” He snaps, his voice raised and vicious now.

“ _Ignis_ ,” he growls now, the memories overtaking him, making him forget, forget that he had erased this, that he is running the risk of undoing everything. _Oh, how beautiful you are. How much I adore you._ He envelops him, fingers curling around the younger man’s face, and he kisses him.

Ignis reacts, he reacts just how he used to, as if his body remembers what his mind has forgotten, and he’s curling up into Ardyn, as if their bodies were made of the same ancient mold. He opens his mouth and Ardyn deepens the kiss as Ignis lifts his arms, drapes them over his shoulders and tries to pull him closer still. He kisses the way Ardyn remembers him kissing so many years ago now. Pushy. Overeager. Assertive. It’s _that_ – the sameness – that finally makes him pull back, grab Ignis’ wrists and untangle himself and step away from the bed. It takes a monumental effort, and Ardyn marvels that he is able to do it at all.

Better to leave now, flee into the night before Ignis has a chance to recover from this.

“Don’t leave tonight,” his voice cracks.

Ardyn _yearns_ for him, but he says nothing.

“Ardyn. I want you. For _years_ , I’ve wanted you.”

He can feel the pain in those words, the confusion and the regret. Yes, the Astrals have been most cruel to Ignis. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

Words that would normally make Ignis Scientia explode in rage, the very insinuation that he not know something too much to bear, but now he only whispers, “Please don’t leave.”

Ardyn Izunia doesn’t hesitate. He closes the door behind him as he leaves.

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It starts with a spot of blood, a red smear beneath Ignis' jawline.

He lets Ardyn touch him, lets him brush lightly against his shoulder as a warning, to indicate that he is near, and let his hand drift up to run a finger down his jaw. "Is this what I think it is?"

"I shave every day, unlike some people." He sounds irritated, but he doesn't push his hand away. Six months since the kiss. Ardyn wonders if he and Gladio tried again, but he doubts it. Ignis has only grown increasingly irritable recently, which means he hasn’t gotten laid.

It isn't the first time Ardyn has noticed such a mark, not the second or even the third, but he doesn't bring this up, not does he bring up how hostile Ignis has become. He only rubs his thumb over the small cut again, revels in how he can feel Ignis' pulse. The silence pushes the younger man to speak again.

"It's a little difficult sometimes."

Ardyn doesn't know what makes him offer. Maybe it's the softness of his skin, the warmth radiating from him, the fact that even now, Ignis doesn't push him away. "I'll do it for you."

He turns his head then, a subtle shift of his attention. "Why?"

"Because every man has a certain number of shaving tickets and while I've had an inordinately long time to use mine, they are not all spent."

"They'd be better served on your own face."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

Then and only then does Ignis raise his hand, shrug Ardyn's touch away. “Considering the fact that you spend the night sometimes, you might as well make yourself useful in the morning."

Because he is now. Spending the night often, even now, even after _that_. They never touch again, never acknowledge one another's existence, but they share a bed and a life if not a memory. If Ignis finds it strange that the Accursed ruler of the world, the one who has brought about eternal night, likes to spend much of his time with the sullen retainer of the Chosen King who would happily kill him just as much as he would happily fuck him, he doesn't ask. He stopped questioning it years ago.

-

Ignis scarcely breathes, and Ardyn can feel, hear, sense his heartbeat. A touch too fast. He's nervous, or perhaps excited.

Because Ignis is touch-starved, lonely and cold and despairing. This much he knows, and he knows that Ignis is also far too proud to ever ask a friend for help. He would never ask someone to touch him, to hold his hand or let him stroke their face and feel their smile.

Ardyn despises the Kings of Yore more and more with every passing day as he sees what they have done to this man, and more than once it has crossed his mind that they _knew_ , they knew who Ignis was to Ardyn, that they punished him just as much for laying with the monster as they did for having the audacity to wield the ring’s power. And if that were so, then Ignis was punished for something he does not remember doing.

He doesn’t let his touch linger, not even for a second. He shaves Ignis the way he used to shave himself, quickly, impatiently. He skates fingers over his face, brushes against his skin only when necessary, because Ignis’ beauty is dangerous and the rivers run deep. _I can not resist who I am. I can not turn away from this man. I can not stop destroying what I adore._ But still, he is careful, and when he flicks the razor over the sink for the final time, he knows that he has done a good job.

Because the moment Ignis reaches up to touch his face, he’s grabbing Ardyn’s arm and ordering him to _sit_ even as he stands.

"Do you trust me enough to let me do this?"

Ardyn glances up at him. He's smiling, but his eyebrows are furrowed. When he's uncertain, he parts his lips ever so slightly, and at this angle Ardyn can see a hint of white teeth. It's strange, how he remembers everything, how Ignis is the exact same in so many ways, and yet so different now. The tragedy simmering beneath his skin has surfaced, and the weight of his sorrow is now visible on his shoulders. How cruel the Astrals are, to make one suffer so for doing what he believed to be right. And yet, even after knowing who I am, he does not recognize this, does not recognize how similar we are, does not remember all we were together. He thinks I'm going to say no, and if he remembered, remembered, he would know I never could refuse him anything.

"I'd let you do it even if I wasn't immortal," he says softly.

"I won't slit your throat. Not with this anyway."

"Is that a threat?"

He shifts his weight to his left leg and grins now. "And not by accident."

"I'll take that as a yes," he sighs, and he wonders what it would be like if Ignis tried to kill him. Others have tried it before, and it never goes well. But he’s curious as to how Ignis would react. "Go ahead."

“I used to shave everyone. On the…trip.” The trip. The road trip, the harbinger journey. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done it though. Gladio prefers looking feral and Prompto’s a bit skittish.”

“His goatee offends me.”

Ignis laughs softly at that as he wipes shaving cream over Ardyn’s face. _Unnecessarily rough_. “He’s finally gotten over his inhibitions about his past. Biggs recently salvaged a bunch of MX Angelus’ and Prompto was able to harness the residual power. Combined with my smarts, we recently brought light to three outposts in as many weeks.”

“That’s nice.”

He pauses then as he lifts the blade and cocks his head. Cute, in a vaguely hostile way. There’d always been something a little defensive about Ignis, and Ardyn suspects, _knows_ , that he is still angry about what transpired between them recently. And what _hadn’t_. “We’ll destroy you.”

“Uh huh,” Ardyn breathes absently. “The ichor in my blood doesn’t wash out very easily so you might want to change your clothes before trying to off me.”

Ignis scowls, but as he begins to shave him, he's careful, hesitant, gentle, his fingers wandering.

And Ardyn aches. Because he remembers. He remembers and he wishes that he could have erased his own memory just as he erased Ignis'. He desperately longs to reach out, to touch his hips and pull him in, but he doesn't dare. He can only lean into that touch, those soft brushes against his face. He doesn’t know how long it lasts, because he feels as if time, that viscous beast that has only recently come to matter to him, has at last surrendered itself. Ignis Scientia is stroking his face, the action far more intimate than that which Ardyn imposed upon him due to his lack of vision.

He speaks without thinking as Ignis begins toweling him off, making one in a long line of mistakes brought on by this man. “I don’t actually care how many people the Scourge takes, you know. I’m just wasting time until the end.”

He makes a mistake and Ignis doesn't correct him when he leans forward slowly and presses his face to the younger man's belly. Ignis doesn't correct him in the slightest, and instead only lays his hands on his back as if to hold him there.

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Ignis strips himself, and Ardyn lets him, only lying back on the bed and watching him through half-closed eyes, the book of maps he’d be browsing earlier completely forgotten. He watches that skin he knows so well slowly reveal itself as Ignis unbuttons his shirt, rips his gloves off and unbuckles his belt and steps out of his pants, and he feels as if he is in a dream. He wants to grab him, throw him down and ravage him, force him still and devour his screams, but he knows that Ignis wants control over this situation and for once, Ardyn is willing to sacrifice that power. He still can not quite comprehend what happened here, can not fathom how nearly a year after they had kissed only to pretend it never happened, Ignis Scientia just began taking his clothes off in front of him. There was no warning, no flirtation – not that Ignis hadn’t tried often enough recently, in his own way – and no ceremony to it.

It simply happened, and Ardyn had let it.

 _You shouldn’t be doing this, you shouldn’t be doing this. Fate is a cruel thing, to let this happen again, to make this happen again. You let him go once, to save him, and now you are only dragging him back into the darkness_ , he thinks numbly as a now-naked Ignis slips onto the bed beside him and kisses his cheek.

He wants to touch his scars, to run his fingers and lips over every inch of them, reclaim the skin and the body that his brother had so cruelly damaged, but he knows better than to do that, knows that Ignis virulently refuses to define himself by his scars, his blindness, knows that his friends’ relentless caution wounds him even more than the lack of sight does. So he ignores them as he gently rolls, pushes Ignis down and kisses him. His body is different than it was eight years ago. He’d finally gained his weight back, and he’d been over-compensating for his blindness, training extra hard, leaving his body a little harder than it once was. Nothing anyone else would notice; Ignis himself probably didn’t notice, but Ardyn lives and breathes within those memories.

Ignis is trembling beneath him as he winds his arms around Ardyn’s shoulders and pulls him close as soon as he breaks for air. “I’m. I’ve never done this before so I…”

And Ardyn freezes. He raises his head and stares at the darkness of the room beyond them. _You did this._ He remembers the first time he’d fucked Ignis Scientia, when the young man had been anxious, nervous but forceful in his certainty. He’d apologized then, more than once, for not knowing what to do, for being too fast, for being uncertain. _Oh, Ignis._ It could have made him laugh, in another age, but now it only makes his jaw ache and the corners of his eyes burn in a way he hasn’t felt in centuries. _He does not remember you. He does not remember you. You did this to yourself. Everyone in the world will forget you but one. And you erased yourself from him forcibly._

“Just let your body take over.” And he gives him the same advice he’d given him so long ago. “Don’t fight it. Just let it feel good.”

He aches. He aches and he does not remember feeling a pain this deep since the days he was only human.

-

He almost kills him when it’s over, when Ignis slips off to sleep, his face tear-streaked but satisfied, and Ardyn is left to sit up in his bed and stare out the window and wonder.

He places his hands over his neck, lightly presses his thumbs into his throat and wonders at how easy it would be to end his life, to snuff him out as if he were only a candle in the dark – and what are humans, after all, when night has come?

But Ignis suddenly moans softly, leans into him and turns on his side. He doesn’t open his eyes, but Ardyn knows he is awake by the sudden shift in his breathing. “Again?” And then he’s laughing. “I’d like again.”

He is just as he was their first night together, demanding and insatiable.

Ardyn pushes a hand between his legs, runs fingers beneath his balls and strokes his skin, sticky and damp from their previous coupling, before pressing two fingers into his warmth. Ignis, oh Ignis, how many hours inside of you have been forgotten? He digs his nails into his inner walls and fucks him hard, first with two and then three fingers until Ignis is arching violently, shaking as he cries out. _Please, please I want your cock._

Ardyn refuses him, wraps fingers around the base of his dick and waits until he positively howls. Oh, those noises he makes. He kisses Ignis, laughs into his mouth as he groans. _Call me Your Majesty._ He wants it, wants it more than anything, but he says nothing because he knows it would make Ignis scrabble backwards in the sheets, slap him and kick him and bite him until he backs off. And he knows that he wouldn’t back off, that he’d hit Ignis and pin him down and rip him in half until the younger man begged for mercy. His dick jumps and his stomach tightens as he thinks of how easy it would be to rape him, to remind him that he is the Accursed, the Usurper, the Starscourge, the man who will kill his beloved king.

But Ignis knows none of this. Because Ignis is rolling over him, wrapping long legs around his waist and guiding his cock inside of him. And Ardyn lets him, lays back and watches Ignis take control. _Do you wonder why you know so much about sex? Do you wonder why you are so sure of your body, so sure of mine, why you know exactly what we both like and why you weren’t as nervous as you thought you’d be to lose your virginity?_

He thinks this and he regrets. He regrets this. He regrets erasing his memory. He regrets ever approaching him so many years ago now, flirting with him and drawing him into that hotel room back when the sun shown and fate was something to mock instead of something to despair over. _You’d never forgive me if you knew the truth of it._

_You’d never forgive yourself._

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They don’t speak of it, don’t acknowledge it. Ardyn stays away for months, watching Ignis from afar, dimly aware of every demon the boy takes down no matter how far away he is, each death at his hands a faint twinge in his bloodstream. Until one day he picks up his phone, half-forgotten by now, as Ignis is one of only two or three people left alive in his contacts, and the others certainly avoid him – he’d marveled at how there was still a provider to make automatic withdrawals from one of his many bank accounts, but in a world where communication as critical for survival, some companies persevered – and sees seven texts. Seven is a lot, even for Ignis, and so he replies. He might have made Ignis wait six days, but Ignis scarcely makes him wait six seconds.

He could warp to where he is, but he drives. He likes driving, likes viewing the world he could have once had at a leisurely pace, likes feeling the breeze and hearing the occasional drizzle on the windshield, even if his wipers are broken and no matter how many times he disguises himself and his car to go to Hammerhead, not even the best of the best can fix them for long. _It’s probably the machine’s passive rebellion against having such a monster inside of it all the time_. He drives, and when he pulls up next to the shelled-out building that marked the coordinates Ignis had texted him, the boy is striding towards the car even before he must hear the gravel ceasing to crunch beneath the wheels.

“I’m going to run you over one of these days.”

Ignis ignores him, only opens the passenger side door and climbs in. “You still haven’t figured out that mortals don’t like having to wait, hm?”

“Actually I think that’s a problem _you_ specialize in,” he yawns. Not quite true. Iedolas Aldercapt was ever impatient. Ravus, too, and look at where that got them. But whatever the case, Ignis is remarkably rude at times. For someone who grew up in the Citadel, who attended international summits and Council meetings from the tender age of thirteen, he never seemed to grasp the subtle art of diplomatic simpering.

It’s cute, especially when Ignis is lunging for him, grabbing the lapels of his coat before sliding his hands down to grab Ardyn’s own, prying them off the wheel and pressing them to his chest, his hips. “Remember how so long ago, you grabbed my hands and made me touch your face? I’m returning the favor.”

So ruthlessly honest at times. He raises an eyebrow, “Are you sure?”

“You once said I should lay my burdens on you. I have urges.”

The aloofness he takes towards it, the way he holds himself apart from his own desires, saddens Ardyn. At once alike and so different from how he used to be. Before the fall. _Would you be angry if you knew how affectionate you were? Better to let that secret die with him_. This Ignis at least seems something akin to content.

“Fine. Get in the back.”

Ignis eagerly obeys, unceremoniously rolling over the back of the front seat. The Ignis of old did not like fucking in cars except for when he was angry, but Ardyn suspects that spending half of eight years of sleeping in abandoned buildings and eating canned food lowers one’s expectations for good sex. There are no classy hotels left, and while Ignis’ apartment suggest high breeding, Ardyn hasn’t returned to it since that night. The least he can do is pull up the roof, which he does with the flick of a button before following him.

-

Ignis cries after orgasming, as he so often used to do, and passes out shortly thereafter, as he so often used to do. If he wonders why Ardyn seems unphased by either one of these traits, he doesn’t ask. He falls asleep sprawled in the backseat, Ardyn’s coat pulled over himself as if it were a blanket.

And Ardyn doesn’t know what to do but drive. He’d arrived on a nearly full tank of gas, so he does nothing but drive in vast and aimless circles. Nothing new for him. He’d done this ever since he first learned to drive. The people he’d worked with in Niflheim knew who and what he was; there was no need to pretend to need sleep or food around them. His car had hit 300,000 miles within 2 years before it gave up the ghost, and Ardyn had had it gutted, retained nothing but the shell, which he has refilled again and again with metal guts that grind their way through another hundred thousand miles before they need replacing. They don’t make anything like they used to.

He drives aimlessly, but for the first time in his memory, he is not alone when he does so. It’s different, even with Ignis asleep and more or less silent behind him. He remembers Ignis asking him how long he’d been alone. _An eternity_. An eternity he has come to feel even more acutely these last eight years.

Once or twice he hears Ignis moan in his sleep, make a sound as if he wants to speak, but he ignores it.

 _Don’t look back._ He can’t be certain that if he looks, Ignis will even be there.

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“How much longer before the sun rises?”

“You ask as if it’s a foregone conclusion.”

Ignis cocks his head and turns his face towards him, as if to look at him. It’s unnerving sometimes, how he does such things. “Don’t pretend that I don’t know you. You’re carrying out your part in this cruel orchestration. I know what it is you seek.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” You. _Only you._ He places the book down on the table and glances out the window, out over the ruins of Insomnia that can be seen from the palace windows. The King’s quarters. He’d been surprised when Ignis had followed him into them until he heard the question, realized what Ignis sought. He sighs, “Eighteen more months of darkness for the land until the sun rises.”

“Until the stars die,” Ignis says, so soft and low that Ardyn convinces himself he hadn’t said it.

 _Not those words, not those words I’d said to you, so long ago now._ Because Ignis can not remember. And because Ardyn is realizing now that saying such a thing is inadequate, that what he feels is... He is grateful when Ignis continues.

“Will it really be exactly 10 years? To the day?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t know why he knows, _how_ he knows, or why he tells Ignis the truth.

“Eighteen months until…” He touches his chest now with his index finger, curls his hand until his palm is upright and he runs his finger up his chest, his throat, and Ardyn finds himself not breathing as Ignis asks, his voice low and throaty. “Do you still want to…waste time until the end?”

The words startle him. He’s not surprised that Ignis remembered, but that he’d ask, that he’d bring them up in a sexual context. And he remembers how Ignis used to be, how he was so insatiable, so relentless. How he would get turned on at the most inappropriate moments, how he would purr about the war and encourage Ardyn to mock the Astrals while riding his cock. There was a brutal side to Ignis that Ardyn so adored and he’s seeing it again now, seeing it in the way he grins, narrows his eyes.

He grabs him. Ignis is laughing as he does it, laughing as Ardun pushes him down to the floor, claws at his belt and jerks his pants down the few inches he needs to bury his face between those thighs and groan in satisfaction. He sucks him hard, makes him shriek when he climaxes before lifting him, carrying him to the bed and stripping him for the first time in eight and a half years.

_Let me forget. Let me forget the night and everything that comes with it if only…_

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Eighteen months do not pass slowly enough.

Ignis. Ignis Scientia is _time_. When he is by this man, he remembers its passage. Eighteen months of wandering Eos, crossing paths just enough to feel connected. He never pushed for more, never expected that Ignis would sacrifice his time, his work, for the monster that heralded in the darkness. He didn’t have to, because Ignis came to him. Again and again he came to him. _So much knowledge will die with you if I don’t absorb some of it_ , he’d shrug. _This Ziggurat has been giving everyone trouble,_ he’d grimace. As the months passed the excuses fell away, until finally ten months in, Ignis had merely touched his face, _I thought you might be lonely_.

Those last eight months passed faster still. They didn’t always fuck, not every time and not even half the time. They talked. They argued. They sat together in the same car, the same room, and ignored one another in a way that was no longer hostile but comfortable. After two thousand and forty seven years alive on this wretched plain, Ardyn feels he has only truly lived for the minutes, hours, days, he has with Ignis Scientia.

And now it all must end.

He runs fingers over Ignis’ lips and sighs. Gods, is he beautiful. _Stay. Stay with me. Stand by me when your King comes to kill me. It won’t change a thing, though it will make me feel less alone in the end._ But it is Ignis’ loyalty, the relentless and ruthless nature of his love for his king, that Ardyn so adores. There’s no need to ask. The answer will be no different than it was ten years ago, and the last gift that he can give to Ignis is a refusal to make him choose again.

“Leave. When you come back, we will be enemies, Ignis Scientia.”

He doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t _leave_ , and so it’s Ardyn who finally turns on him. He only gets three paces before Ignis speaks.

“Ardyn.” There is a command in his voice that stills the air, stills time itself. “Were we…intimate?”

No, no, no. The word makes something inside of him clench, twist, howl. A part of him that Ignis and Ignis alone has the power to awaken. _I want you to stay asleep. It’s been so long, so long. I don’t need this so close to the end._ “I believe that’s what you’d call last night.”

“No. I mean,” he hesitates, and there is something wild and beautiful in his eyes. “ _Before_.”

 _Before_. Before the darkness, before the ruin. So he knows. _He knows_.

Ardyn warps to him, warps so close he can immediately cup his face in his hands and press his forehead to the younger man’s. Ardyn has not apologized, not sincerely, in over two thousand years. He hasn’t apologized since the Crystal turned black, since the Astrals cast him out, since his own brother executed him and reminded him that hope was a futile effort and love was only something to be manipulated. Just as Ardyn had seduced Ignis, manipulated him, tortured him _. If only I could tell you. If only I could…._ “I…made a mistake. Forgive me.”

Ignis clings to his wrists and sobs. And Ardyn is certain then. He not only knows but _remembers_. “I do, I do. I forgive you. I’ll always…”

The world ceases to be.

He can barely speak, and so when the words finally crawl forth from his throat, they are little more than a gasp, a breath of air he feels he has not had in a hundred ages. _Thank you_.

And Ignis says his next quickly, as if he fears that he will be robbed of his voice and the memories he’d already lost once. “I love you.”

He says those words, words Ardyn has not heard in over two thousand years, words he thought he’d never hear again.

And he knows then. He understands, after so many centuries of hatred keeping him alive in dark places. He can be forgiven. He can be loved again. And he knows he can step towards his death now and know that there is something beyond it, something and someone and somewhere waiting for him. And he knows that there is something past the darkness, knows that there is a someone waiting for him, knows that there is a somewhere that he can in turn wait for Ignis to find him again.

But now he must die and tear the heart of Ignis Scientia anew. Because the mortal’s words had unwittingly pushed him to accept the maw of the unknown. He leans in, touches his face and wipes the tears from his eyes. “That’s unfortunate,” he says softly.

And he releases him.

 


End file.
